Page 47 of Deviant Knight

Dom lost his father tonight.

Tony and I didn’t have much of a relationship, not even Pakhan to Don. At least not in the same sense he did with my father, the former Russian-American Pakhan.

I respected Domenico’s father. He was a good man—an even better man and father than my own. Tony didn’t keep many secrets from his children like mine did when he decided to make my sister and I believe he’d divorced our mother years ago. My dad could have stood to learn from the Italian-American Mafia boss with how Tony raised Sienna. Then maybe my father and sister wouldn’t have had such a rocky relationship for far too many years.

When Tony introduced Ciera as Dom’s bride during Sienna’s wedding reception last weekend, my gut reaction was anger. I covered my dislike over the thought of Domenico marrying someone else with humor, telling the pretty little Irish girl I’d share him with her.

I wasn’t supposed to like that idea as much as I did. But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, my dick got hard as I pressed it against Dom’s ass. I’ll never forget the look on Ciera’s face. She was shocked, but there was also arousal in her eyes.

I’m sure the flush staining her cheeks resembled embarrassment to everyone else, but I saw the truth within her emerald stare. She was hungry for the image I had put in her head. I had a feeling she had a naughty side, and that’s exactly what she proved when she didn’t stop Dom and me from helping her get herself off the other morning.

Until Domenico, I had never cared if my partner for the night got off or not. My release was all that mattered. Watching him come undone is a sight I could go the rest of my life and never tire of, but watching Ciera fall apart at our hands was mind-blowing. The sounds she makes and how her curvy body moves will make you forget your goddamn name. She’s mesmerizing in a way I never dreamed existed, which is why I’m so far past the point of anger right now.

Conflicting emotions and rage are a bad combination where I’m concerned. I want to paint every inch of her body with my cum, inside and out. I want to feel her walls milk my dick so tightly that she inflicts pain and pleasure. I want to eat from her pussy and lick her dry, but that isn’t going to happen now. She’ll be lucky if she’s still breathing by tomorrow morning.

There is no doubt in my mind that Domenico has one mission to accomplish tonight. Tony’s murder may not technically be Ciera’s fault, but Dom isn’t going to see it that way. Hell, I’m not entirely positive that I’m not blaming her too. I’m angry, pissed off, fucking furious. But is it with her or the fact that we let an enemy get through us? That we allowed him to kill one of us. I’m not even sure when I started to see our families as one.

I don’t want Domenico to kill her. If I’m honest, I don’t want him to harm one hair on her beautiful head. But I won’t stand in his way if that’s the option he chooses. If he needs to end Ciera’s life to regain his sanity so that he doesn’t burn the whole world down, then so be it. As much as it’s going to hurt whatever part she has unlocked inside me, I’ll live with the damage.

If the tables were turned and my father was lying in a pool of blood, lifeless, I would have sent her to her maker right then and there. The only reason Domenico didn’t is that our pregnant sisters were in the middle of it. He wasn’t going to risk either of them getting hurt.

The dinging sound from the elevator stopping on my floor pulls me out of my thoughts. When the doors slide open and Ciera doesn’t move, I push at the small of her back too aggressively, making her stumble. Reaching out, I grab her by the elbow to keep her from falling face-first into the marble floor.

“I’m not the one you should be worried about,” I lie as I hold her in place long enough for her to regain her balance. I’m equally as bad as Dom, if not worse. She’d be a fool to think I’m the nice one between us both. He has more morals than I do. He was raised by a kinder man than me. “Your father didn’t murder mine.”

A slight tremble rakes down her body. I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been touching her. She hides her fear, schooling her features as if she’s had practice. I store that realization in the back of my mind for another time.

Guiding her with more caution than she deserves, we stop in front of my locked apartment. It’s a smart lock, but it takes more than a key code to unlock it, which is why I don’t care if she sees the six-digit number that I have to punch into the keypad before placing the pad of my middle finger on the fingerprint reader. The door unlocks almost instantly.

Once we’re inside and the door closes, the security system arms again. It takes more than simply turning a knob to leave my residence, which is why I brought her here.

“Go shower. You have Tony’s blood all over you. Wash it off before Dom gets here,” I order, my tone coming out harsher than I’d intended, but the sight of all the crimson running down the right side of her neck and matted in her hair has me wanting to get trigger-happy on someone else tonight, and I really don’t want it to beher. It’s best for her to get out of my sight right now. Plus, I have a mission of my own to accomplish before Domenico gets here.

“You can use the master bathroom, but do not put that dress back on your body. Find something from my closet.”

As if needing space from me too, she scurries down the hall. When the door to my bedroom closes, I pivot and walk to the raised countertop between the main sitting room and the open kitchen. It’s modern, with a black granite countertop and white cabinetry below. Three stools with cream-colored fabric that lines the seats are pushed underneath the raised countertop, only the backrest showing.

My muscles are coiled too tight to sit on one of the stools, so I reach for my laptop, dragging it to the side of the counter. Cormac Fitzgerald may be dead, but there is always someone in line to step into a boss’s shoes after he meets his demise. I haven’t met the seventeen-year-old son of the former Irish-American gang leader, Ciera’s brother, but he’ll need more than his name and more than the men on his father’s payroll to fill Daddy’s worn-out shoes.

He needs money, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Cormac has it stashed away with him being the only one with access. He was always too paranoid for his own good. Of course, it’s understandable when you’re a crooked person who breeds thieves. It’s a wonder someone hadn’t stabbed him in the back before now.

My sister may be a brat sometimes, but we’ve always had a bond no one could ever break. The bitch kept a massive secret from me, yet I still trust her implicitly. She could wipe me clean, but I know she couldn’t care less about our family fortune.

To power on the screen, I use my right forefinger to access the laptop. I double-check that my IP address is set to ping a different location worldwide every five seconds. I can’t chance leaving a digital fingerprint anytime I scour the internet, even for mundane searches.

I already know which bank Cormac uses, but there’s also a chance he uses multiple financial sources. Those will take a little time to figure out, so starting with the one I know of from when Domenico was digging into the New York City Police Commissioner’s finances, I start there.

It takes me ten minutes too long to start the transfer of funds, but now that it’s going, I can’t close my laptop when Ciera stops in the entryway between the hallway and the living room. Her father had more money than I would have imagined he’d have in a U.S. bank. It makes me think he has a higher connection than I’d initially considered.

Ciera’s bare legs distract me from my next task, pulling my eyes away from the screen to scan up her body. She’s wearing one of my basic black T-shirts, the hem nearly reaching her knee because of our height difference. The shirt covers too much for me to be able to tell if she put her panties back on or borrowed a pair of my boxer briefs instead. She could have opted for none at all.

A beige towel is draped over her shoulders with her hair hanging over the top. How she makes something so plain that swamps her petite size look sexy as fuck, I don’t know. What I do know is that I can’t stay in the same room as her and not try to fuck her. She’s two sides of the same coin and it messes with my head. I’m attracted to the innocence you see on the surface, but that naughty little lion you can only see when staring into her green eyes taunts me. I want to strip all her layers off, and I’m not talking about the clothes hanging on her sexy body.

So, despite not having discovered the second step in my plan to finish my pursuit of destroying the Fitzgerald legacy, I push my laptop away. Then I step away, walking in her direction to find the nearest cold shower as my eyes remain glued to her frame. my cock stiffening behind my pants.

“Don’t bother trying to escape,” I inform her, stopping in front of her and looking down. “It’s a complicated security system that is way over your pretty little head. You’ll only piss me off by trying and fucking my shit up. You don’t want to piss me off, kitten.”

Her eyes flash with defiance, not liking my remark, and a part of me hopes she tries to run. I like hunting prey, only she isn’t my meal to capture, and that knowledge is like a cheese grater running down my spine, leaving jagged cuts in its wake.

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